2014 brought us plenty of new open-spec, community-backed SBCs — from $35 bargains, to octa-core powerhouses — and all with Linux or Android support. Ringing in 2015 with 40 Linux-friendly hacker SBCs article is a good overview of the Linux friendly single board computers in around $35 to $200 range. Nowadays there is so huge variety of those, that it can be sometimes hard to choose from all of them,
Ringing in 2015 with 40 Linux-friendly hacker SBCs article notes that deciding which boards are hacker friendly is becoming more difficult, especially as traditional embedded SBC vendors have begun experimenting with the low-end “maker” market. The success of the Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone, and several other open-spec boards have motivated embedded vendors to offer more information about their products, as well as open source Linux and Android builds, and in some cases, full hardware specs and open licensing. This trend has clearly accelerated. Traditional vendors are feeling the pressure from the community SBC world, and many are gradually changing their approach, addressing the needs of hobbyists, educators, and smaller developer shops that prefer open source boards for prototyping.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
The Future of Open Source Hardware
http://www.eeweb.com/company-blog/mouser/the-future-of-open-source-hardware
http://www.mouser.ph/applications/open-source-hardware-future/?utm_source=eeweb&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=eeweb_2013?utm_source=EEWeb&utm_medium=TechCommunity&utm_term=2014&utm_content=Content&utm_campaign=Mouser
Entrepreneurship and technological advances tend to choose the path of least resistance to reach a goal. In electronics, Open Source Hardware (OSHW) is a path of least resistance. Open source hardware will seep into commercial use and be supported by it, just as open source software has with the commercial support of Linux in embedded applications, Apache web servers, and the Android operating system.
Commercial use of open source software (OSS) was adopted as a foundation in embedded design.
OSS has widespread commercial benefits. Android, an operating system, negates the need to re-invent the wheel for mobile hardware manufacturers like Samsung and HTC. It also has a similar look-and-feel across all platforms, so users do not have to relearn the OS on a new device.
A Different Kind of Integration
High levels of integration in semiconductor chips accomplish a similar goal of providing ready-made solutions, especially when tested software stacks are provided. However, accessibility tends to be limited by lack of documentation or easily accessible support to masses of regular people. There simply isn’t enough manpower for any corporation to personally assist those approaching a steep learning curve. OSHW mitigates barriers not only by providing documentation at a lay-person’s level, but also with support forums. OSHW leverages the social aspects of the Internet in these forums, and includes sharing experiences, information, and advice. Commercial business models are struggling to harness the social benefits of the Internet, with most efforts only focused on marketing. Those who have gotten a board up and have completed a project or two, have a wealth of knowledge that enables them to direct others, informally improve documentation, identify bugs, and suggest fixes. And hours spent working on a problem seem more valuable when the solution is shared.
However, with restrictions around patented and proprietary processors, the future of OSHW will be driven by the opportunistic semiconductor companies. The level of openness matters. OSHW will also be driven by the intensely creative and nascent Maker community, by the foresighted in academia, and by the altruism found in human nature.
OSHW is also shifted by the market trends that drive processors, and by low cost. Low-cost translates to accessibility, since hardware cannot be shared as freely as code. But OSHW goes where the usual business models do not go, enabling what we have not seen before, which includes areas ripe for altruism, such as in Medical and Education.
OSHW, as an open source model, is a framework on which to share ideas, and therefore a crucible to mix ideas from many diverse streams of information coming from businesses, individuals, artists, and both users and contributors from multiple professions and experiences…..all applied to electronics hardware. OSH W provides an approachability-factor that enables the confidence of non-engineers (and not just students) to dabble and create. This is new; a kind of electronics democracy. Successful OSH W projects retain the culture of academia where much was fostered, for the express purpose of inviting accessibility for learning embedded hardware.
So what is the future for open source hardware? It may seem obvious, but the future brings more open source projects that further enable current technology.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Top 10 Single-Board Computers Under $200
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325296
‘Bigger isn’t always better.’ That is certainly the case for today’s SBCs (single-board computers), which rival and sometimes surpass the power desktop PCs had from just 10 years ago. There are literally dozens of SBCs currently on the market and companies continue to release a steady stream of new boards seemingly every eight months or so.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Top 10 Open Source Linux Boards Under $200
http://www.linux.com/news/galleries/top-10-open-source-linux-boards-under-200/minnowboard-199
Tomi Engdahl says:
Top 10 Open Source Linux Boards Under $200
http://www.linux.com/news/galleries/top-10-open-source-linux-boards-under-200
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Comparison of Open Source Hardware
http://www.eeweb.com/company-blog/mouser/a-comparison-of-open-source-hardware
This article presents a comparison of open source hardwares, which is the Intel Galileo and Raspberry Pi development boards. It describes the different applications of the boards, the cost, performance, as well as its major differences such as processors and on-board features, peripherals and utilities, and its general-purpose I/O’s.
The Intel Galileo and the Raspberry Pi (RPi) are both do-it-yourself (DIY) electronics hardware development boards featuring embedded processors. RPi is loosely labelled as open source in this article, but it does not qualify as open source hardware per the strictest standards, since some of the chips on the board are notoriously difficult to get support for, rendering deep control impossible and cobbling creativity in the process. Realistically speaking, the highest levels of openness for hardware would include an open core, and yet many products claim to be open source hardware that go up to, but do not include, total control of the processor. Additionally, although RPi is a wonderful educational and media processing tool, RPi cannot be reproduced freely, as there is a copyright on the RPi schematics. Manufacture of the board is limited to a couple of licensees.
It’s not really fair to compare RPi to Galileo, since the choice should be based upon the goal of the project. Here we detail similarities and differences so that decisions can be made indirectly prior to purchase.
Galileo has a new, memory-rich and powerful processor (Quark) and is compatible with existing Arduino open source hardware (OSHW)
OSHW began in academia. OSHW was developed as a hopeful effort to provide a simple means for education in embedded hardware, where none (at least not low cost, nor as well-documented) had existed before, post-Heath Kit. OSHW has become better known, more widely dispersed, and is rapidly growing since it became more modular (much like chunks of code in Open Source Software) via singular manufacturing entities such as Arduino. Not only are sources openly accessible, but hardware is ready-made and pieces can be simply bolted together. Detailed expertise in technology is not required for implementation.
The Galileo board sports a 400MHz Pentium-class System-on-a-Chip (SoC) called “Quark,” that was made by Intel cooperatively with Arduino. (Galileo is compatible with existing Arduino shields that fit the Arduino Uno R3.) RPi is normally clocked at 700MHz, but is easily overclocked
Tomi Engdahl says:
Best Single-Board Computers Under $200: The Readers Strike Back
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325529&
Single-board computers (SBCs) are quickly becoming a staple in the maker world as the go-to development board. Professional engineers may use SBCs for prototyping as well as hobby tinkering. So exactly what is an SBC and why do so many makers use it in their projects?
Makers and engineers often use SBCs as an affordable alternative over notebooks and desktops to design everything from home automation to robotics or just about anything that can be imagined. In this slideshow, we’ll take a look at some of the SBCs for under $200 that have been suggested by EE Times’ readers of this Top 10 Single-Board Computers Under $200. Pete220 is one such reader and his alternatives such as ZedBoard’s MicroZed development board.
Top 10 Single-Board Computers Under $200
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1325296
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Multi-Core Raspberry Pi 2
http://www.epanorama.net/newepa/2015/02/02/new-multi-core-raspberry-pi-2/
Benchmarking The Raspberry Pi 2
http://hackaday.com/2015/02/05/benchmarking-the-raspberry-pi-2/
The Raspberry Pi has only been available for a few days, but already those boards are heading through the post office and onto workbenches around the world. From the initial impressions, we already know this quad-core ARMv7 system boots in about half the time, but other than that, there aren’t many real benchmarks that compare the new Raspberry Pi 2 to the older Raspi 1 or other similar tiny Linux dev boards. This is the post that fixes that.
Raspi 2 vs. BeagleBone Black
The fight everyone has been waiting for. As of a week ago, if you wanted a relatively high-power board with a great community, you were looking at the BeagleBone. Now, not so much. With nbench, the single-core performance of the Raspi 2 is very comparable to the BeagleBone Black
The original Raspberry Pi saw a lot of emulator use, but it was limited: the Pi 1 could handle the NES, SNES, Genesis/Mega Drive, and other earlier consoles with ease. Emulator performance for N64 and original Playstation games was just barely unplayable. Now, the Raspi 2 can easily handle N64 and PSX games.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Linaro Launches an Open-Source Spec For ARM SBCs
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/02/10/0434229/linaro-launches-an-open-source-spec-for-arm-sbcs
Not content to just standardize ARM-based Linux and Android software, Linaro has just launched 96Boards, an open-source spec for ARM-based single board computers. Along with the spec’s rollout, Linaro also announced a $129 HiKey SBC
The 96Boards initiative plans to offer a series of specs for small-footprint 32- and 64-bit Cortex-A boards, including an Enterprise Edition (EE) of its spec in Q2.
Linaro launches open ARM SBC spec, and an octa-core SBC
http://linuxgizmos.com/linaro-launches-open-arm-sbc-spec-and-an-octa-core-sbc/
Linaro has launched an open-source spec for ARM SBCs called “96Boards,” first available in a $129 “HiKey” SBC, featuring a Huawei octa-core Cortex-A53 SoC.
Linaro, the ARM-backed not-for-profit engineering organization that has aimed to standardize open source Linux and Android software for Cortex-A processors, is now trying to do the same thing for hardware. Linaro, which is owned by ARM and many of its top system-on-chip licensees, has launched 96Boards.org, a cross between a single board computer hacker community and an x86-style hardware standards organization.
96Boards.org has released a Consumer Edition (CE) of the spec with an 85 x 54mm or 85 x 100mm footprint, and both 40- and 60-pin expansion connectors for stackable boards. This will be followed in the second quarter by an Enterprise Edition (EE).
The 96Boards initiative will offer a series of specs for small-footprint 32- and 64-bit Cortex-A boards “from the full range of ARM SoC vendors,” says Linaro
32- and 64-bit ARM Open Hardware Boards
https://www.96boards.org/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Raspberry Pi 2 Model B review
Single-board computer gets a big performance boost
By Daniel Robinson
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/review/2394418/raspberry-pi-2-model-b-review
Product: Raspberry Pi 2 Model B
Website: Raspberry Pi
Price: About £25+VAT
Specifications: Broadcom 900MHz BCM2836 SoC based on quad-core Cortex-A7, 1GB RAM, microSD card slot for storage, 10/100 Ethernet, 4 x USB 2.0 ports, HDMI, audio/video jack socket, GPIO header, micro USB port for power, DSI and CSI connectors
Tomi Engdahl says:
Chewier than a slice of Pi: MIPS Creator CI20 development board
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/09/review_imagination_technologies_mips_creator_ci20_development_board/
Time was when chip-makers’ processor evaluation boards were well beyond the reach of ordinary mortals. That didn’t matter, of course: ordinary mortals weren’t interested in small, nude motherboards designed to help designers of embedded systems judge a microprocessor’s suitability for the application they were working on.
Then, in rapid succession, came Arduino, Beagleboard and Raspberry Pi, and suddenly wee, bare and now cheap motherboards were all the rage. Arduino emerged as a great low-cost controller for hobby electronics. The Pi has the loftier goal of teaching the world to code. Despite its size, it’s more sophisticated than the Arduino: a desktop computer, essentially. The Beagleboard’s successor, the Beaglebone, sits between the two.
One interesting thing about the Pi and the Beagles is that they’re essentially old-style evaluation boards, for Broadcom and Texas Instruments chips, respectively. And here comes another: MIPS’ Creator CI20.
MIPS, once a popular maker of Risc CPUs for Unix workstations, is now a subsidiary of Imagination Technologies. Just as Imagination founded Pure to make digital radios to show off Imagination’s DAB chips, here’s the CI20 to show off MIPS processor tech and Imagination’s PowerVR GPU.
Unix workstations having been out-evolved by Intel chippery, MIPS today has its gaze fixed on the embedded world, where it competes with ARM instead. It has had some success: Imagination will happily tell you that MIPS chips can be found in three billion-odd devices. The problem is, they’re not the sexy ones. While ARM is in smartphones and tablets, you’re more likely to find a MIPS chip in a home wireless router or a bit of telecoms infrastructure. Important for sure, but not something to wow “the kids”.
Which is where the CI20 comes in. If World+Dog expects evaluation boards to be as cheap as the Raspberry Pi, then here’s a low-cost MIPS-based board. Professionals assessing the MIPS-based Ingenic JZ4780 SoC for a new set-top box or carrier-grade networking box would buy one anyway, but at £50 the CI20 is now an alternative to the like of Pi and might just start winning for MIPS a fresh audience of enthusiastic youngsters.
Tomi Engdahl says:
64-bit Capable Credit-Sized Dev Kit For The Makers
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1326041&
Qualcomm’s DragonBoard 410c has been designed as a low-cost development board based on the company’s 64-bit Snapdragon 410 processor.
The credit card-sized development kit is designed to support rapid software development and prototyping for commercializing new inventions and products. The Snapdragon 410 processor is a powerful enablement technology for embedded solutions providers to support off-the-shelf or custom system-on-modules, support and design services for commercial deployments. The DragonBoard 410c is anticipated to be made commercially available by third party distributors this summer.
It boasts Quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPUs at up to 1.2 GHz per core and 64-bit capability, a Qualcomm Adreno 306 GPU with 400MHz high quality graphics, 1080p HD video playback and capture with H.264 (AVC), support for 13 megapixel camera with Wavelet Noise Reduction, JPEG decoder, and other post-processing techniques done in hardware.
The board supports both Android and Linux and can be expanded through one 40-pin Low-Speed connector (UART, SPI, I2S, I2C x2, GPIO x12, DC power), one 60-pin High-Speed connector (4L-MIPI DSI, USB, I2C x2, 2L+4LMIPI CSI) and an analog expansion connector (Headset, Speaker, FM antenna).
Visit Qualcomm at http://www.qualcomm.com
Tomi Engdahl says:
HOW TO CONVERT A USB CHARGER INTO A TINY LINUX COMPUTER
http://n-o-d-e.net/post/113954752456/how-to-convert-a-usb-charger-into-a-tiny-linux
This tutorial will show you how to make a Linux computer that fits inside a modified USB charger plug, providing constant power in a very small package. It uses the Raspberry Pi compatible ODROID-W development board and runs the Raspbian OS. The plug itself can be used internationally and has US/UK/EU attachments.
PHOTOS (More how-to photos further down)
- Plug with UK/US/EU attachments
- USB Charger internals + ODROID-W computer
- Size compared to 11inch Macbook Air
- In hand
PARTS / MATERIALS (~$50)
- ODROID-W single board computer (700Mhz, 512MB RAM)
- USB charger plug (Model “MD-ADP-0516UN001” which has UK/US/EU attachments)
- USB Wifi adapter (must be Raspberry Pi compatible)
- Insulating tape
- Scrap plastic for insulation
- Solder
- Some thin wire
- Micro-SD card (Needs to be big enough to hold the OS + whatever you intend to use the computer for)
Tomi Engdahl says:
Boxer Board
http://issuu.com/eeweb/docs/oe-2015_embedded_developer_1_pages/25?e=7607911/12044884
Sitara AM3352
Will retail for under $100
Suitable for IoT and M2M markets
Boxer Board SBCa335x Single Board Computer
http://convergencepromotions.com/EmbeddedModules/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=181:boxer-board-sbca335x-single-board-computer&Itemid=463
Features
Cortex-A8 TI AM3352 or AM3354
Built for industrial use
2 Ethernet Gigabit
CAN and USB
Pin compatibility with Raspberry PI Capes and Hats
Long term availability
Low power consumption
Linux OS, BSP & Build System, QNX BSP
SBCa3352 (Available in May)
Tomi Engdahl says:
Linux computers for MIL applications:
Nano I/O Interface with optional ARM1 Processor
http://intelligentsystemssource.com/product-details/?id=5077
1 intelligent function module
COSATM Architecture
Optional ARM Cortex™-A9 Dual Core 800MHz Processor
512 MB DDR3L SDRAM
4 GB SATA II NAND Flash (up to 32 GB option)
2x 10/100/1000 Base-T Ethernet ports
Wind River® Linux and VxWorks®, and Xilinx® PetaLinux OS support (w/optional ARM processor)
Tomi Engdahl says:
Building Super Small Linux Computers From Scratch
http://hackaday.com/2015/04/10/building-super-small-linux-computers-from-scratch/
Conventional wisdom says small, powerful embedded Linux like the Raspberry Pi, Beaglebone, or the Intel Edison are inherently manufactured devices, and certainly not something the homebrew tinkerer can produce at home. [hak8or] is doing just that, producing not one, but two completely different tiny Linux computers at home.
The first is based on Atmel’s AT91SAM9N12 ARM processor, but the entire board is just about two inches square. On board is 64 MB of DDR2 DRAM, a USB host and OTG port, and not much else. Still, this chip runs a stripped down Linux off of a USB drive.
https://github.com/hak8or/Embedded-Linux-System
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kickstarting Router-Based Development Boards
http://hackaday.com/2015/04/21/kickstarting-router-based-development-boards/
[Squonk] is rather famous in the world of repurposed routers, having reverse engineered the TL-WR703N wireless router from TP-Link a few years ago. With that knowledge, he’s developed an open platform for Things on the Internet called Domino. It’s pretty much exactly what you would get by cracking open a router bought on AliBaba, only in a much more convenient package with many more pins broken out.
The Domino builds on [Squonk]’s reverse engineering efforts of the TP-Link TL-WR703N wireless router, the router that has stolen the thunder from the Linksys WRT54G for all those sweet, sweet, embedded hacks.
Domino IO – An Open Hardware WiFi Platform for Things
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/706167548/dominoio-an-open-hardware-wifi-platform-for-things
Domino.IO is an affordable and advanced WiFi hardware platform for Things, and full life-cycle services for Makers!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kickstarting Even More Router-Based Dev Boards
http://hackaday.com/2015/04/22/kickstarting-even-more-router-based-dev-boards/
The latest and greatest thing makers and IoT solutions is apparently router hacking. While most Hackaday readers lived through this interesting phase where Linksys routers were used to connect sensors and other such digital bits and bobs to the Internet a few years ago, SOCs have improved, and now there are router-based dev boards.
The latest is the Onion Omega, an exceptionally tiny board just under two inches square. Onboard is an Atheros AR9331 chipset – the same found in a number of cheap WiFi routers – attached to 32 pins breaking out GPIOs, SPI, I2C, and USB. With WiFi and Ethernet, this is a board designed to connect sensors, motors, actuators, and devices to the Internet.
Onion Omega: Build Hardware with JavaScript, Python, PHP
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/onion/onion-omega-invention-platform-for-the-internet-of?ref=category
Tiny dev board with Linux & WiFi. Create cool things with REST APIs, App Store, in-depth tutorials, and our awesome community!
What Is The Onion Omega?
The Onion Omega is a hardware development platform
designed specifically for software developers.
It comes with built-in WiFi, Arduino-compatible and it runs full Linux. It lets you prototype hardware devices using familiar tools such as Git, pip, npm, and using high level programming languages such as Python, Javascript, PHP. The Onion Omega is fully integrated with the Onion Cloud, making it a breeze to connect physical devices to the Web to create Internet of Things applications. It’s also open source
Tomi Engdahl says:
Again a new card computer for developers
Embedded devices developers are buying now works concession Raspberry _ and Arduino-cards, so it is no wonder that recruits all the time. One of the newest is UDOOn developed by Neo.
Neo is 85 x 59.3 mm card, which driver is the Freescale i.MX processor 6SoloX. It must be, in turn, includes two ARM-core Cortex-A9 and Cortex-M4.
The memory card of 512 MB and the Plus version, a gigabyte
Respective developers of the Neo-card to connect Raspberry Pin and Arduino features. The applications can be written in any language, as long as they are rotated in Linux or Android platform, the card supports.
Neo-card was applied for Kickstarter on 15 000 dollars financing, but very quickly became the subscribers of 75 000 dollars. For more than a thousand developers are subscribed to the card, the least expensive version costs $ 49.
Source: http://www.etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2733:taas-uusi-korttitietokone-kehittajille&catid=13&Itemid=101
Tomi Engdahl says:
David Scheltema / Make:
Next Thing Co. unveils CHIP, a $9 Raspberry Pi competitor with 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 CPU, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of storage, running Debian Linux
Next Thing Co. Releases “World’s First” $9 Computer
http://makezine.com/2015/05/07/next-thing-co-releases-worlds-first-9-computer/
Snuggly situated in an industrial section of Oakland, CA is Next Thing Co. a team of nine artists and engineers who are pursuing the dream of a lower cost single board computer. Today they’ve unveiled their progress on Kickstarter, offering a $9 development board called Chip.
The board is Open Hardware, runs a flavor of Debian Linux, and boasts a 1Ghz R8 ARM processor, 512MB of RAM, and 4GB of eMMC storage. It is more powerful than a Raspberry Pi B+ and equal to the BeagleBone Black in clock speed, RAM, and storage. Differentiating Chip from Beagle is its built-in WiFi, Bluetooth, and the ease in which it can be made portable, thanks to circuitry that handles battery operation.
If you’re wondering how Chip could be this inexpensive, you can thank cheap Chinese tablets. The System-on-Chip used in the development board is based on an A13 processor by Allwinner, a Shenzhen-based semiconductor company. As recently as 2013, Allwinner was the second largest tablet manufacturer in the world, and the A13 was the most successful processor in Allwinner’s lineup.
Try it now — query for “a13-based tablets” and you’ll discover sub-fifty dollar devices at clock speeds near that of Chip.
How an industry giant and a tiny startup came to partner on a sub-$10 computing device owes to Next Thing’s history developing products and business connections with Shenzhen-based accelerator HAXLR8R
CHIP – The World’s First Nine Dollar Computer
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1598272670/chip-the-worlds-first-9-computer
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tessel 2, A $35 Linux Computer That’s Truly Open Source
http://hackaday.com/2015/05/22/tessel-2-a-35-linux-computer-thats-truly-open-source/
We’ve seen the first version of the Tessel a few years ago, and it’s still an interesting board: an ARM Cortex-M3 running at 180MHz, WiFi, 32 Megs of both Flash and RAM, and something that can be programmed entirely in JavaScript or Node.js. Since then, the company behind Tessel, Technical Machines, has started work on the Tessel 2, a board that’s continuing in the long tradition of taking chips from WiFi routers and making a dev board out of them. The Tessel 2 features a MediaTek MT7620 running Linux built on OpenWRT, Ethernet, 802.11bgn WiFi, an Atmel SAMD21 serving as a real-time I/O coprocessor, two USB ports, and everything can still be controlled through JavaScript, Node, with support for Rust and other languages in the works.
The Tessel project is completely disconnected from manufacturers
Tomi Engdahl says:
Not Linux, but something similar:
Unix On Your Breadboard
http://hackaday.com/2015/05/21/unix-on-your-breadboard/
As smartphones continue to get bigger and bigger, the race to have the smallest chip running Unix (or Linux, as the case may be) is still on. A new contender in this arena is [Serge] who has crammed RetroBSD on a Fubarino microcontroller for a powerful breadboard-friendly device.
The device uses a PIC32MX795 processor to run version 2.11BSD Unix for microcontrollers. It uses only 128 kbytes of RAM which is great for the limited space available, but it doesn’t skimp on software.
All of this comes in a package that has breadboard-compatible pins so you can interface your Unix with the real world.
Unix on your breadboard
https://hackaday.io/project/5891-unix-on-your-breadboard
RetroBSD on Fubarino SD board is a self-contained development system. See a demo for 6-digit LCD module.
RetroBSD is a version of 2.11BSD Unix for microcontrollers. It can run on PIC32 in only 128 kbytes of RAM. The operating system includes nt only a set of basic Unix utilities, but also a C compiler, assembler, linker, libraries and include files sufficient to develop user applications directly on the target processor. Cross-compile is possible as well.
RetroBSD can run on virtually any PIC32 board equipped with SD card. These boards are supported “out of the box”:
Fubarino SD 795
Duinomite, Duinomite-Mini, Duinomite-Mega, Duinomite-eMega
Maximite, Maximite Color, CGCOLORMAX2
CGMMSTICK1
chipKIT Max32 and chipKIT WF32 with SD card shield
Tomi Engdahl says:
HOW TO CREATE A CHEAP LINUX DONGLE FOR YOUR TV
http://n-o-d-e.net/post/120794182426/how-to-create-a-cheap-linux-dongle-for-your-tv
This guide will show you how to make a cheap and functional dongle which turns your TV into a full Linux computer. It utilizes the tiny ODROID-W development board and runs Raspberry Pi compatible software.
It’s designed for most modern TVs which have both HDMI and USB sockets.
The project is definitely of the rough and ready variety. It ain’t pretty, but it works. It requires no expensive equipment to make and consists entirely of off the shelf parts. It combines the ODROID-W with a cheap USB Hub, some custom connectors, with everything being housed inside a plastic ID badge holder.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Two New Dev Boards That Won’t Make Your Wallet Hurt-So-Good
http://hackaday.com/2015/06/13/two-new-dev-boards-that-wont-make-your-wallet-hurt-so-good/
DE0 Nano SoC
First, the dev board boasts a Cyclone V with 40,000 logical elements (up from the DE0’s 22K) and an integrated dual-core Arm Cortex A9 Processor. The PCB layout also brings us 3.3V Arduino shield compatibility via female headers, 1 Gig of external DDR3 SDRAM and gigabit ethernet support via two onboard ASICs to handle the protocol. The folks at Terasic also seem to be tipping their hats towards the “Duino-Pi” hobbyist community, given that they’ve kindly provided both Linux and Arduino images to get you started a few steps above your classic finite-state machines and everyday combinational logic.
The board hits online shelves now at a respectable $100.
DE0-Nano-SoC Kit/Atlas-SoC Kit
http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi-bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&No=941
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tiny x86 Systems With Graphics Cards
http://hackaday.com/2015/07/03/tiny-x86-systems-with-graphics-cards/
The Intel Edison is out, and that means there’s someone out there trying to get a postage-stamp sized x86 machine running all those classic mid-90s games that just won’t work with modern hardware. The Edison isn’t the only tiny single board computer with an x86 processor out there; the legends told of another, and you can connect a graphics card to this one.
This build uses the 86Duino Zero, a single board computer stuffed into an Arduino form factor with a CPU that’s just about as capable as a Pentium II or III, loaded up with 128 MB of RAM, a PCI-e bus, and USB.
Tomi Engdahl says:
BeagleBone Green Hands-On: Lower Price, Same Horsepower
http://hackaday.com/2015/08/05/beaglebone-green-hands-on-lower-price-same-horsepower/
The BeagleBone Green is an update to the venerable BeagleBone Black, the dev board based on a TI ARM Cortex-A8. It’s an extremely capable machine with a few interesting features that make it the perfect device for embedded applications. With the BeagleBone Green, the BB Black gets a small hardware refresh and a drastic reduction in price.
The BeagleBone Black has been around for more than two years now, but it’s still an extremely capable machine. The BeagleBone Green borrows heavily from the Black, with a few changes to satisfy the cost-reduction goal, and to make the BB Green slightly more accessible.
By far the largest change is the removal of the microHDMI connector. This is accompanied by a large bare spot on the board where the NXP HDMI Framer chip once was on the BB Black. When I talked to [Jason Kridner] his justification for the removal of the HDMI capability of the Green was that ‘nobody used it.’
Also on the list of changes are the addition of two Grove connectors. These connectors are part of a modular system of electronics that put a UART or I2C bus on a single connector.
Aside from those changes, the BeagleBone Green is pretty much exactly the same as the BeagleBone Black.
Alessia Marisol says:
Hey Tomi Engdahl,
I am very glad to know about Linux friendly Single Board Computer.Just to let you know about the Inforce 6540 and Inforce 6410 Plus single board computer. The chip of the board is the Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 that is a quad-core 2.5GHz monster with 2MB of L2 cache. The GPU is the Adreno 420 at 600MHz that can support OpenGL 3.0 and OpenCL.The IFC 6540 costs 250$ and comes with Android 4.4.2 (KitKat) BSP release and Ubuntu Linux 14.04 (Trusty) release pre-installed.
Inforce 6410 Plus SBC: http://www.inforcecomputing.com/products/single-board-computers/6410-plus-single-board-computer-sbc
Inforce 6540 SBC: http://www.inforcecomputing.com/products/single-board-computers/6540-single-board-computer-sbc
Tomi Engdahl says:
Tiny Headless Servers Everywhere
http://hackaday.com/2015/09/17/tiny-headless-servers-everywhere/
Quick, what do “cloud compute engines” and goofy Raspberry Pi Internet of Things hacks have in common? Aside from all being parody-worthy buzzword-fests, they all involve administering remote headless (Linux) installations. It’s for exactly that reason that a new Ubuntu distribution flavor, Ubuntu (Snappy) Core, targets both the multi-bazillion-dollar Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud and the $55 BeagleBone Black.
If that combination seems unlikely to you, you’re not alone. But read on as we hope to make a little more sense of it all.
When rumors of the Raspberry Pi first hit the scene in 2011, it was marketed as the solution to the world’s computer literacy woes — at $25 per computer every child in the world could have one at their fingertips.
Nobody was thinking that we were in for an army of headless Linux servers, but that’s exactly what happened.
There were other small computers around; at the time, the BeagleBoard was the hotness on the single-board computer (SBC) front, but it was expensive enough that only the committed and nerdy were using them.
Then the Raspberry Pi came out at around a fourth of the price of the BeagleBoard, and something funny happened. Instead of being the solution to the world’s computer needs, the Raspberry Pi ended up working its way into the same project-space that the Arduino had inhabited. Maybe it was the price point and form factor.
For example, one can’t deny that a Twittering Toilet is a necessity of the modern era.
They’re cheap enough that you can dedicate one to the toilet without only minor pangs of guilt. So not long afterward, we have Raspberry Pis in toilets and chicken coops rather than in grade-school curricula.
These type of projects don’t use the device as a “computer” at all.
Or have a look at the Beagle family. The BeagleBoard (2010) was a full-fledged single-board computer (SBC); you could plug in a monitor and keyboard. Then came the bare-bones (and slightly less expensive) version: the BeagleBone (2012). Signalling that it was meant for embedded applications rather than being a standalone computer, it had no video output and was a bit cheaper. It was a success.
Even less expensive, the BeagleBone Black (2013) again picked up an HDMI port, because, heck, why not? And as if to answer that question, the newest BeagleBone Green replaces the video out with some I2C peripheral connectors,
A recent survey at Linux Gizmos asking their readership to rate their favorite single-board computers turned up no surprises on the popular-brand fronts: the Raspberry Pi is most popular, followed by the BeagleBone Black, followed by the Odroid offerings.
More interestingly, they also asked folks what applications they’re putting their SBCs toward. The results, in order:
home automation
special function servers
home multimedia
education
robotics / vehicles
data acquisition / control
HMI / industrial
“other”
kiosks
This matches our gut feeling about what the average Hackaday hacker is interested in as well, so we’ll buy it.
Running Headless: The Software Catches Up
So if the Internet of Things is going to be an internet of headless Linux boxes, isn’t it time our software / operating systems caught up? No more of this GUI configuration menu crap — that’s for desktops that have the luxury of monitors. What you need, once you’ve got your Raspberry Pi or BeagleBone sitting deep inside some box somewhere, is quick and easy deployment and network-based remote administration of the tiny headless Linux server that lies within. And until you’ve got its web server or VNC up and running, that means spending some quality time with the console.
Queue the parallel development in the “cloud” world. The need to quickly spin up machines on servers has put a premium on ease of installation and updating of complete systems using simple and powerful command-line tools. In particular, the ability to create a system, save the configuration and installation details, and then replay them back into another instance has become a lot easier in the last five years. See containers and Docker and all that jazz.
Conclusion
The unlikely marriage of software tech from “cloud appliances” with our hacked (non-metaphorical) appliances is just starting, and we think it’s actually going to benefit us hardware types.
Tomi Engdahl says:
ARMs and FPGAs Make for Interesting Dev Boards
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/07/arms-and-fpgas-make-for-interesting-dev-boards/
Tiny Linux computers are everywhere, and between BeagleBones, Raspberry and Banana Pis, and a hundred other boards out there, there are enough choices to go around. There is an extremely interesting ARM chip from Xilinx that hasn’t seen much uptake in the field of tiny credit-card sized computers: the Zynq. It’s an ARM Cortex-A9 coupled with an FPGA. It’s great for building peripherals that wouldn’t normally be included on a microcontroller. With Zynq, you just instantiate the custom bits in the FPGA, then interface them with a custom Linux driver. Thanks to CrowdSupply, there’s now a board out there that brings this intriguing chip to a proper development platform. It’s called the Snickerdoodle, and if you’ve ever wanted to see the capabilities of an FPGA tightly coupled to a fast processor, this is the board to watch.
The core of the Snickerdoodle is a Xilinx Zynq that features either a 667 MHz ARM Cortex A9 and a 430k gate FPGA (in the low-end configuration) or an 866 A9 and 1.3M gate FPGA. This gives the Snickerdoodle up to 179 I/O ports – far more than any other tiny Linux board out there.
https://www.crowdsupply.com/krtkl/snickerdoodle
snickerdoodle ($55)
A palm-sized Linux computer that connects to the real world with ARM, FPGA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 154 reconfigurable I/O. snickerdoodle is a brain for your robot, an autopilot for your drone, and the backbone for your computer vision system – all in one tight little package.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Part Day: The BeagleBoard Gets Bigger
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/07/new-part-day-the-beagleboard-gets-bigger/
Officially, the latest hardware revision we’ve seen from BeagleBoard is the BeagleBone Black, a small board that’s perfect for when you want to interface hardware to a Linux software environment. This last summer, the BeagleBone Green was introduced, and while it’s a newer hardware release, it’s really just a cost-reduced version of the BB Black. Over the entire BeagleBoard family, it’s time for an upgrade.
It’s been talked about for more than a year now, but the latest and greatest from the BeagleBoard crew is out. It’s called the BeagleBoard X15, and not only is it an extremely powerful Linux board, it also has more ports than you would ever need.
The new BeagleBoard features a dual-core ARM Cortex A15 running at 1.5GHz. There is 2GB of DDR3L RAM on board, and 4GB of EMMC Flash. Outputs include three USB 3.0 hosts, two Gigabit Ethernet controllers, one eSATA connector, LCD output, two PCIe connectors, and an HDMI connector capable of outputting 1920×1080 at 60 FPS. The entire board is open hardware, with documentation for nearly every device on the board available now.
The expected price of the BeagleBoard X15 varies from source to source, but all the numbers fall somewhere in the range of $200 to $240 USD,
Beagleboard:BeagleBoard-X15
http://www.elinux.org/Beagleboard:BeagleBoard-X15
Tomi Engdahl says:
64bits Of Development Board
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/09/64bits-of-development-board/
Whether we need them or not, we don’t usually shy away from a development board. [Keith] sent us a tip on the DragonBoard 410c
Arrow Electronics is manufacturing (and distributing, not surprisingly) the first Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 series based development board. At the time of writing there are two boot images on the 96boards.org site available for download Android 5.1 and an Ubuntu based version of Linux.
The DragonBoard 410c is stuffed with an Arm Cortex-A53 (Arm block diagram after the break) with max speed of 1.2GHz and support for 32bit and 64bit code. It also has on-board GPS, 2.4GHz WiFi, Bluetooth 4.1, full size HDMI connector, a micro USB port that operates in only device mode, two full size USB 2.0 ports for host mode, a micro SD card slot. In the way of GPIO it has a 40 pin low speed connector and a 60 pin high speed connector,
DragonBoard 410c
A Product of Arrow Electronics
https://developer.qualcomm.com/hardware/dragonboard-410c
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ask Slashdot: Is There Space For Open Hardware In Networking?
http://ask.slashdot.org/story/15/10/13/191202/ask-slashdot-is-there-space-for-open-hardware-in-networking
Open hardware has got much attention with the advent of Raspberry Pi, Arduino and their respective clones. But most of the devices are focused either on tinkerers (Arduino) or most notably multimedia (Raspberry Pi).
Our company (non-profit) is trying to change this with Turris Omnia but we still wander if there is in fact demand for such devices. Is the market large enough and the area cool enough?
Turris Omnia
https://omnia.turris.cz/en/
More than just a router.
The open-source center of your home.
Home router is necessary to connect you to the Internet but it is idle most of the time, just eating electricity. Why not use it for more tasks?
With powerful hardware, Turris Omnia can handle gigabit traffic and still be able to do much more. You can use it as a home server, NAS, printserver and it even has a virtual server built-in.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Top 10 Single Board Computers From $9 to $569
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1328008&
When you’re in need of a single board computer, a vast selection is available, making it tough to pick an ecosystem. We’ll cover the top ten most current single board computers to help you choose the right platform for your next project.
Tomi Engdahl says:
An Intel Atom CPU In The Raspi Form Factor
http://hackaday.com/2015/10/18/an-intel-atom-cpu-in-the-raspi-form-factor/
For years now, people have been trying to stuff an Intel processor on a credit card sized board. An x86 board that can fit in your pocket is an intriguing device – after all, that’s what Gumstix, the forerunner of the Raspberry Pi, were. Efforts to put x86 on a dev board have included the Minnowboard, the Intel Galileo and Edison, and even the Intel Compute Stick. These have not seen the uptake you would expect from a small x86-powered board, but that tide may soon turn. The UP board is exactly what you would expect from a Raspberry Pi-inspired board with a real Intel processor.
The feature set for the UP board is impressive for a credit card sized board; it’s powered by a quad-core Intel Atom x5-Z8300 CPU running at 1.84 GHz. The board comes equipped with 1GB of RAM, 16GB of eMMC Flash, Gigabit Ethernet, five USB 2.0 ports (one on a pin header) and one USB 3.0 port.
UP – Intel x5-Z8300 board in a Raspberry Pi2 form factor
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/802007522/up-intel-x5-z8300-board-in-a-raspberry-pi2-form-fa
UP, the credit card computer board for makers powered by Intel Quad Core Atom X5-8300 1.84GHz, running Linux, Windows 10, and Android
Tomi Engdahl says:
Another go with MIPS IoT: Imagination unveils new Creator board
Ci40 will feature hardware multithreading
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/20/imagination_technologies_creator_ci40/
Imagination Technologies has announced the Creator Ci40, a development board for Internet of Things (IoT) projects, based on the MIPS interAptiv CPU.
Imagination Technologies is best known for its PowerVR GPUs, which are licensed to mobile and SoC (System on a Chip) vendors including Apple.
In late 2012, the company acquired MIPS, giving it a strong CPU offering alongside its GPU designs, though marketing MIPS in a mobile market dominated by ARM and Intel is challenging.
Last year Imagination released the Creator Ci20 development board, to stimulate interest in MIPS development. Unlike the ARM-based Raspberry Pi, the Creator board has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth built in. The Ci20 has a 1.2GHz dual-core MIPS32 CPU and a PowerVR SGX540 GPU.
Operating system support is set to be revealed on 27th October, and boards will be available from 10th November, according to Imagination’s teaser site. This is likely to include Debian Linux as well as Android.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Official, Customized Raspberry Pi Versions Coming Soon
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/15/10/27/1211234/official-customized-raspberry-pi-versions-coming-soon
The immensely popular Raspberry Pi will soon be offered in customized versions, through an exclusive arrangement between Raspberry Pi Trading and Element14. According to the companies’ announcement, Element14 will provide design and manufacturing services to OEM customers to create ‘bespoke designs’ based upon the Raspberry Pi technology platform.
A handful of unsanctioned Raspberry Pi knock-offs have already appeared over the past couple of years, including various Orange Pi and Banana Pi flavors, which certainly didn’t involve any ‘bespeaking.’
Official, customized Raspberry Pi versions coming soon
http://linuxgizmos.com/official-customized-raspberry-pi-versions-coming-soon/
Raspberry Pi Trading Ltd., the commercial subsidiary of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and Element14 have signed a global exclusive agreement whereby Element14 will provide “design and manufacturing services to OEM customers to create bespoke designs based upon the Raspberry Pi technology platform,” the companies jointly announced in London today.
Use of the term, “bespoke” makes it clear that the customized Raspberry Pi SBC development projects will entail substantial up-front commitments to both NRE (non-recurring engineering) payments and volume orders. In particular, “As these will be bespoke designs it is envisaged that order quantities will start in the region of between 3,000 and 5,000 depending upon the nature of the customization,” adds the announcement.
With the exponential growth in popularity of the Raspberry Pi SBC among educators, hackers, makers, and professional developers alike, it was only a matter of time until the SBC to morph into a de facto standard architecture for use as the embedded platform within a wide range of smart devices. A similar phenomenon occurred in the mid-80s when the IBM PC architecture was began to be incorporated into SBCs like the Ampro Little Board/PC and standardized architectures like PC/104.
Applications for new, customized versions of the Raspberry Pi are expected to include Internet of Things (IoT) devices, energy management, industrial, and end-consumer devices
The tweaked Pi’s are expected to include revised board layouts, additional or alternative functions, interfaces, connectors, and memory configurations, and more. Last year, the Raspberry Pi Foundation created its own customized version of the Raspberry Pi SBC in the form of the $30 computer-on-module called the Raspberry Pi Compute Module
Raspberry Pi Customization Service
http://www.element14.com/community/docs/DOC-76955
Welcome to element14’s exclusive Raspberry Pi customization area
Gain unique access to design and manufacturing services, specially tailored to those wishing to create custom versions of ANY Raspberry Pi board for mass production purposes.
We will support you every step of the way during the design process – from concept right through to the manufacture of the final boards; enabling the Raspberry Pi to be optimized to suit your specific applications.
Tomi Engdahl says:
VoCore: Mini Linux Computer
Take on Endless Electronic Projects with the Tiniest Linux Computer Yet!
https://deals.slashdot.org/sales/vocore-mini-linux-computer?utm_source=slashdot&utm_medium=hubicon&utm_campaign=vocore-mini-linux-computer
Mini computer boards are getting more popular by the day—but none have been quite as tiny or quite as affordable as VoCore. With this mini Linux machine, you can make a tiny router, invent a new device, build a motherboard, or even repurpose old speakers into smart wireless versions. Its small size gives you options: use it as a standalone device running OpenWrt or use it as an embedded component of a larger system.
Works on open-source hardware
Provides up to 20 GPIO lines
Runs OpenWRT Linux
Includes an on-board Wi-Fi adapter so you don’t need an external one
Easily connects to peripheral devices
Small size enables it to act as an embedded system
Extends Ethernet & USB interfaces w/ the Dock
Operates as a fully functional 2.4GHz Wi-Firouter
Dimensions: 0.98″L x 0.98″W
Operating system: OpenWrt
System Memory: 32 MB RAM
Storage: 8MB SPI Flash (for firmware)
In-out voltage range: 3.3V to 6V
Power consumption: 200-220mA
Processor: Ralink/Mediatek 360 MHz RT5350 MIPS
Data rate: Up to 150Mbps
Dual band 802.11n Wi-Fi
Tomi Engdahl says:
Vote for best ARM-based product
http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/catching-waves/4440702/Vote-for-best-ARM-based-product-?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151028&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_today_20151028&elq=530cacc5f33a40cebdd241663ea195de&elqCampaignId=25455&elqaid=28949&elqat=1&elqTrackId=a751f47c88e4483397a46f58ddd852cd
Tomi Engdahl says:
Comment to http://hackaday.com/2015/11/05/fail-of-the-week-openmv-kickstarter-project-hits-manufacturing-snag/ camera project:
There are much cheaper ways to do this, here is a nice 720P h.264 camera running Linux on an ARM9 for $6.40.
http://world.taobao.com/item/521662517549.htm?spm=a312a.7700714.0.0.Vhsx6O#detail
It has 64MB of memory and Ethernet.
nathan says:
the link is down, do you have the camera name / type?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Can you please specify what link and camera you are talking about?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Nvidia Brings Computer Vision and Deep Learning to the Embedded World
http://hackaday.com/2015/11/10/nvidia-brings-computer-vision-and-deep-learning-to-the-embedded-world/
Today, Nvidia announced their latest platform for advanced technology in autonomous machines. They’re calling it the Jetson TX1, and it puts modern GPU hardware in a small and power efficient module. Why would anyone want GPUs in an embedded format? It’s not about frames per second; instead, Nvidia is focusing on high performance computing tasks – specifically computer vision and classification – in a platform that uses under 10 Watts.
For the last several years, tiny credit card sized ARM computers have flooded the market. While these Raspberry Pis, BeagleBones, and router-based dev boards are great for running Linux, they’re not exactly very powerful. x86 boards also exist, but again, these are lowly Atoms and other Intel embedded processors. These aren’t the boards you want for computationally heavy tasks. There simply aren’t many options out there for high performance computing on low-power hardware.
The Jetson TX1 uses a 1 TFLOP/s 256-core Maxwell GPU, a 64-bit ARM A57 CPU, 4 GB of DDR4 RAM, and 16 GB of eMMC flash for storage, all in a module the size of a credit card. The Jetson TX1 runs Ubuntu 14.04, and is compatible with the computer vision and deep learning tools available for any other Nvidia platform. This includes Nvidia Visionworks, OpenCV, OpenVX, OpenGL, machine learning tools, CUDA programming, and everything you would expect from a standard desktop Linux box.
Nvidia unveils credit card-sized ‘supercomputer’ for portable AI
CEO wants to be the ultimate helicopter parent
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/11/nvidias_latest_ai_hardware/
Older readers may think of Nvidia as a graphics firm but, according to CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, the firm is now all-in on accelerating computing and machine learning.
“I’ve been in the computer industry for 30-some years and this has got to be one of the most exciting things that’s happening: The ability for computers to learn, the ability for computers to write software themselves and do artificially intelligent things is revolutionizing web services,” he said.
To that end he spent Tuesday showing off new hardware that the company has launched for the machine learning market. At the data center end there are new GPU accelerators aimed at easing the video and graphics workload that servers handle, and then in the afternoon the firm showed off the Jetson TX1.
This 50 x 87mm card contains a one-teraflop 256-core Maxwell GPU, a 64-bit ARM A57 CPU, and 4GB of memory, along with Ethernet and Wi-Fi. It will be available for order in the first quarter of next year with a $299 price tag, or you can get the software developer’s kit and hardware later this month for $599, or $299 if you’re in school.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Beagle Bone Green
http://store.hackaday.com/products/beagle-bone-green
Opensource Beaglebone Green, fully-compatible replacement for Beaglebone Black
$39.00
BeagleBone Green (BBG) is a joint effort by BeagleBoard.org and Seeed Studio. It is based on the open-source hardware design of BeagleBone Black and developed into this differentiated version. The BBG has included two Grove connectors, making it easier to connect to the large family of Grove sensors available from SeeedStudio. The on-board HDMI is removed to make room for these Grove connectors.
Fully compatible with Beaglebone Black.
Updated 5V barrel connector, replaced with μUSB host.
Boot Linux in under 10 seconds!
Get started developing in under 5 minutes!
Tomi Engdahl says:
Arrow Inside the Lab – Dragonboard 410c
http://www.eeweb.com/blog/eeweb/arrow-inside-the-lab-dragonboard-410c
Welcome to Inside the Lab with Arrow Electronics, the webseries dedicated to exploring the latest in technology and electronics. In this episode we’ll introduce you to Arrow’s DragonBoard 410c, a development board for Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 400 series of SoCs. The DragonBoard complies with the 96boards consumer edition specification and is based on the Snapdragon 410, which features a quad-core ARM Cortex A53 running at up to 1.2 GHz and a Qualcomm Adreno 306 MHz GPU.
Tomi Engdahl says:
96boards
32- and 64-bit ARM Open Platform Specifications
https://www.96boards.org/
For software developers
For the maker community
For embedded OEMs
Tomi Engdahl says:
The Nvidia Jetson TX1: It’s Not For Everybody, But It Is Very Cool
http://hackaday.com/2015/11/24/the-nvidia-jetson-tx1-its-not-for-everybody-but-it-is-very-cool/
Last week, the Nvidia Jetson TX1 was released. This credit card-sized module is a ‘supercomputer’ advertised as having more processing power than the latest Intel Core i7s, while running at under 10 Watts. This is supposedly the device that will power the next generation of things, using technologies unheard of in the embedded world.
What is the TX1
The Jetson TX1 is a tiny module – 50x87mm – encased in a heat sink that brings the volume to about the same size as a pack of cigarettes. Underneath a block of aluminum is an Nvidia Tegra X1, a module that combines a 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A57 CPU with a 256-core Maxwell GPU. The module is equipped with 4GB of LPDDR4-3200, 16GB of eMMC Flash, 802.11ac WiFi, and Bluetooth.
This module connects to the outside world through a 400-pin connector (from Samtec, a company quite liberal with product samples, by the way) that provides six CSI outputs for a half-dozen Raspberry Pi-style cameras, two DSI outputs, 1 eDP 1.4, 1 eDP 1.2, and HDMI 2.0 for displays. Storage is provided through either SD cards or SATA. Other ports include three USB 3.0, three USB 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet, a PCIe x1 and PCIe x4, and a host of GPIOs, UARTs, SPI and I2C busses.
The only way of getting at all these extra ports is, at the moment, the Jetson TX1 carrier board, a board that is effectively a MiniITX motherboard. Mount this carrier board in a case, modify a power supply and figure out how to wire up the front panel buttons, and you’ll have a respectable desktop computer.
Is the TX1 a ‘supercomputer on a module’? Yes, and no. While it does perform reasonably well at machine learning tasks compared to the latest core-i7 CPUs, the Alexnet machine learning tasks are a task best suited for GPUs. It’s like asking which flies better: a Cessna 172 or a Bugatti Veyron? The Cessna is by far the better flying machine, but if you’re looking for a ‘supercomputer’, you might want to look at a 747 or C-5 Galaxy.
On the other hand, there aren’t many boards or modules out there at the intersection of high-powered ARM boards with a GPU and on a 10 Watt power budget. It’s something that’s needed to build the machines, robots, and autonomous devices of the future. But even then it’s still a niche product.
Nvidia Brings Computer Vision and Deep Learning to the Embedded World
http://hackaday.com/2015/11/10/nvidia-brings-computer-vision-and-deep-learning-to-the-embedded-world/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Secure Intel® VPX SBCs with Integrated FPGA Solutions
http://www.xes-inc.com/view/news/170/?utm_source=Extreme%20Engineering%20Solutions%20%28X-ES%29%20News&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Hero%20Image&utm_content=Image&utm_campaign=Secure%20Intel%20SBCs%20with%20Oncard%20FPGAs&mc_cid=329b4d2e73&mc_eid=8aba6938d4
Extreme Engineering Solutions, Inc. (X-ES) announces a selection of rugged, Intel® processor-based VPX SBCs featuring onboard FPGA modules from the Xilinx Kintex UltraScale and Microsemi SmartFusion®2 families.
The 6U OpenVPX™ XCalibur4643 provides a powerful combination of a high-end System-on-Chip (SoC) and high-end FPGA integrated on a single, industry-standard card. The Xilinx Kintex UltraScale KU040 FPGA is optimized to support signal processing and RAM-intensive applications at leading performance-per-watt levels. A high-speed x8 PCI Express Gen3-capable interface to the Intel® Xeon® D SoC provides tight integration between the two.
Abundant I/O bandwidth is available with 10 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces on the CPU and high-speed serial transceivers on the FPGA. The Kintex UltraScale FPGA can accommodate secure boot applications with Trusted Platform Module (TPM) support and an interface to the CPU’s boot flash.
Host Custom Functions to Protect Data From Being Modified or Observed
The 3U OpenVPX™ XPedite7572 with a 5th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 (formerly Broadwell-H) processor and XPedite7672 with the Intel® Xeon® D (formerly Broadwell-DE) processor are low-power, high-performance SBCs that offer a sophisticated set of features for securing a critical application or securing an entire system and the information within it, while also providing best-in-class processing performance with Intel® processors.
As implemented on these SBCs, the power-on control and boot path is entirely controlled and monitored by the SmartFusion®2 to provide authentication and detection against many types of attacks.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Linux server that fits in your pocket
American ocean has developed a web server that could fit the needs of a wide Web Developer. Linux-based server is the size of a smartphone, but it can still be driven, for example, Node.js server. The device is crammed a lot of useful technology.
Ocean comes by default with Debian 8.1 operating system
The device has 4 GB of internal memory. Next month, the future sale of the first version of storage is 16 GB. With Bluetooth and wifi antenna package costs $ 149.
Source: http://etn.fi/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3856:linux-palvelin-joka-sopii-taskuun&catid=13&Itemid=101
https://getocean.io/
Mobile phones can not do everything. Ocean is small enough to fit in your pocket, powerful enough to run a Node.js web server, and cheap enough to deploy at scale. All Oceans come pre-installed with Linux, and includes a 4200 mAh battery, a wireless charger, built-in support for Bluetooth (4.0 and Low Energy), and WiFi.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Atom-Based JaguarBoard To Take On Raspberry Pi
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/16/01/24/1729241/atom-based-jaguarboard-to-take-on-raspberry-pi
The tiny single-board PC movement that’s leading the Internet of Things (IoT) market is largely dominated by ARM-based processors, and for good reason — they’re cheap, low power and capable. However, what if you prefer to work with the x86 architecture? JaguarBoard looks strikingly similar to Raspberry Pi, which is arguably the most popular single-board mini PC. But unlike Raspberry Pi, JaguarBoard allows users to develop for x86, courtesy of its Intel Atom Z3735G (Bay Trail) foundation. The chip is a quad-core part clocked at 1.33GHz to 1.83GHz with 2MB of L2 cache, offering a fair amount of horsepower for IoT applications.
It’s not the only hobbyist-appropriate x86 board, but those specs are pretty good for $45.
JaguarBoard Intel Atom Powered Single-Board Mini PC To Take On Raspberry Pi At $45
Read more at http://hothardware.com/news/jaguarboard-intel-atom-powered-single-board-mini-pc-to-take-on-raspberry-pi-at-45#Puvz6UmdO0tqfX6c.99
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sensor board promotes 96Boards CE
http://www.edn.com/electronics-products/other/4441284/Sensor-board-promotes-96Boards-CE?_mc=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_consumerelectronics_20160127&cid=NL_EDN_EDT_EDN_consumerelectronics_20160127&elq=d0775e13f06d49f79fb287153ca03348&elqCampaignId=26686&elqaid=30525&elqat=1&elqTrackId=4b80a5b33a5b461cb0b12271d04f2791
Among the first on the market, STMicroelectronics’ B-F446E-96B01A STM32-based mezzanine board meets the 96Boards Consumer Edition (CE) open-platform specification for the ARM ecosystem. The board is outfitted with embedded sensors for movement, pressure, and sound, aiming to simplify the development of low-cost, context-aware smart mobile, embedded, and digital-home devices.
The B-F446E-96B01A plugs directly on top of a 96Boards CE board. It is powered by a 180-MHz STM32F446 microcontroller with an ARM Cortex-M4F core and smart peripherals, along with an onboard MEMS 9-axis accelerometer, magnetometer, gyroscope, pressure sensor, and microphone. Arduino Uno and Seeedstudio Grove connectors allow expansion using boards and modules from either ecosystem. Developers also have access to the same ecosystem as ST’s STM32 Nucleo boards.
Open Platform Specifications and
Reference Software for the ARM ecosystem
For software developers ● For the maker community ● For embedded OEMs
http://www.96boards.org/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Odroid C2 Bests Raspberry Pi 3 in Several Ways
http://hackaday.com/2016/03/02/odroid-c2-bests-raspberry-pi-3-in-several-ways/
It’s been a big week in the world of inexpensive single board computers, and everyone’s talking about the new Raspberry Pi 3. It blows away the competition they say, nobody can touch it for the price.
Almost nobody, that is.
With a lot less fanfare on these shores, another cheap and speedy 64-bit quad-core ARM-based SBC slips onto the market this week, Hardkernel’s Odroid C2. And looking at the specification it seems as though the Pi 3 may be given a run for its money. Like the BCM2837 in the Pi 3 its Amlogic S905 SoC is a quad-core ARM Cortex-A53, but the C2’s 2GHz clock speed gives the raspberry to the 1.2GHz of the Pi 3. There is twice the RAM of the Pi 3 at 2Gbytes, and the onboard Mali-450 GPU can deliver 4K video.
Unlike the Pi 3 there is no wireless or Bluetooth on board, but the C2 has a Gigabit Ethernet port which is wired directly into the SoC. Compared to the Pi 3’s 100 megabit port which suffers through being on a USB interface, that’s likely to be very quick.
Introducing the Raspberry Pi 3
http://hackaday.com/2016/02/28/introducing-the-raspberry-pi-3/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Pine64: The Un-Review
http://hackaday.com/2016/04/21/pine64-the-un-review/
Even before the announcement and introduction of the Raspberry Pi 3, word of a few very powerful single board ARM Linux computers was flowing out of China. The hardware was there – powerful 64-bit ARM chips were available, all that was needed was a few engineers to put these chips on a board, a few marketing people, and a contract manufacturer.
One of the first of these 64-bit boards is the Pine64. Introduced to the world through a Kickstarter that netted $1.7 Million USD from 36,000 backers, the Pine64 is already extremely popular. The boards are beginning to land on the doorsteps and mailboxes of backers, and the initial impressions are showing up in the official forums and Kickstarter campaign comments.
This un-review covers the least expensive Pine64, featuring a 1.2 GHz Allwinner A64, 512MB of RAM, Ethernet, HDMI, and two USB ports.
Right now, the Pine64 is available for preorder in three configurations. The lowest tier, the one being reviewed here, is $15 USD with worldwide shipping. The Pine64+ includes 1GB of RAM, Gigabit Ethernet, and connectors for a camera, LCD, and a touch panel. This version costs $19 USD, plus $7 shipping to the US, $12 for the rest of the world. The top-tier Pine64+ 2GB includes 2GB of RAM, priced at $29, plus $7 shipping to the US, $12 for the rest of the world.
There’s a lot of space on the Pine64, and the headers, ports, and plugs take full advantage of this fact. Power, Ethernet, and HDMI are all on one side of the board, USB and the 3.5mm mic and headphone jack are opposite, the SD card is along the side. There’s a DSI header to connect a touch sensitive LCD, but the connector for the touch panel is on the other side of the board.
The hardware is pretty much what you would expect from a 64-bit ARM board. The quad-core ARM A53 Allwinner CPU is effectively the same CPU that is found in the Raspberry Pi 3. The GPU, however, is entirely different.
https://www.pine64.com/
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Part Day: A BeagleBone On A Chip
http://hackaday.com/2016/05/10/new-part-day-a-beaglebone-on-a-chip/
The current crop of ARM single board computers have a lot in common. Everything from the Odroid to the Raspberry Pi are built around Systems on a Chip, a piece of silicon that has just about everything you need to build a bare minimum board. You won’t find many hardware hackers playing around with these chips, though. That would require putting some RAM on the board, and some other high-speed connectors. Until now, the only people building these ARM boards were Real Engineers™, with a salary commensurate of their skills.
This is now about to change. Octavo Systems has launched a new product that’s more or less a BeagleBone on a chip. If you can handle putting a PCB with a BGA package in a toaster oven, you too can build your own ARM single board computer running Linux.
Octavo’s new System in Package is the OSD335x family, featuring a Texas Instruments AM335x ARM Cortex A8 CPU, up to 1GB of DDR3, and peripherals that include 114 GPIOs, 6 UARTs, 2 SPIs, 2 I2Cs, 2x Gigabit Ethernet, and USB.
The chips used in commercially available single board computers like the Pi and BeagleBone have hundreds of passive components sprinkled around the board. This makes designing one of these single board computers challenging,
Octavo is baking a bunch of these resistors, capacitors, and inductors right into this chip, allowing for extremely minimal boards running Linux.
OSD335x
A New Era of Integration and Flexibility
http://octavosystems.com/octavo_products/osd335x/
Each OSD335x device incorporates a Texas Instruments AM335x Sitara™ Processor, TPS65217C Power Management IC, TL5209 LDO Voltage Regulator, a DDR3 SDRAM, and over 140 passive components. Since the OSD335x encapsulates the complicated high-speed design of the processor/DDR3 interface, the power management IC, and the complete complement of related capacitors, resistors, and inductors, the final system design is vastly simplified.